Evaluación de los filtros de gravedad autónomos sin válvulas de la planta de tratamiento de agua potable de Portovelo

Abstract

The present work shows important concepts about the use of autonomous gravity filters without valves, for the treatment of drinking water, as an object of study, application and operation we have the San José drinking water treatment plant, which supplies the city from Portovelo and it has two filtration units of this type. In the development of this work, the evaluation of the operational parameters of the filters was carried out and their efficiency was verified within the turbidity removal process, where it was possible to verify that the treated water complies with the allowed parameters being suitable for human consumption, keeping its values within the tolerable limit provided by the Ecuadorian Institute for Standardization in its Ecuadorian Technical Standard 1108 for the removal of turbidity, although its values are a bit high unlike other types of filters, this due to the presence of large numbers of particles and solids dissolved in the water collected in winter and the lack of maintenance in the operations prior to the filtration process. A filter wash control was also carried out to determine the duration of the filtration runs by determining that the wash interval is 36 hours in winter and approximately 73 hours in summer and that the duration of each wash is 4 min. The filters operate with a filtration rate of 138.24 𝑚3 𝑚². 𝑑